How Did Colonization Change

The Colonization Change: A Look at Tennyson, Mukharji and Rushdie The British Empire had been colonizing for many years, but often times it is forgotten amongst today’s audience the affect that colonization had on millions of people across the globe, and still has an effect on today’s society and people. Colonization was crucial in helping the advancement of industry in Europe, and especially England. The literature published by writers during this era, those from not only England but from the colonized lands, reflects how the colonized people were viewed by the society. Whereas the literature produced by the people of India, Pakistan, Ireland and others, reflect the confusion, distrust and hardship that coming to a new country caused. These

What came from it was entitled, “Opening of the Indian and Colonial Exhibition by the Queen” and within the poem, Tennyson addresses the views of the British towards this conglomeration of strange cultures and people that they had never seen before: “Sons and brothers that have sent. /From isle and cape and continent, /Produce from your field and flood…Gifts from every British zone;” (Tennyson 3-5; 9). Tennyson promotes nationalism throughout the poem, even though this event is supposedly about the other cultures: “In our ancient island State, / And wherever her flag fly, / Glorying between sea and sky, / Makes the might of Britain known;/ Britons, hold your own!” (Tennyson 16-20). Nationalism was important to the British, as a new industrial and world power, there is a feeling of being the “mother” country for the colonies. For example in the lines, “’Sons, be welded each and all, / Into one imperial whole, / One With Britain, heart and soul!” Tennyson implies that England is the mother country, and under her rule, these colonies will all become part of the powerful empire, and they will become a part of Britain (Tennyson

In an excerpt from A Visit to Europe, written by T. N. Mukharji, he is a visitor from India who is attending the same exhibition that Tennyson wrote about, but his experience is different than what Tennyson claims the exhibit will be. Mukharji’s first person perspective on the exhibition allows for the audience to truly understand how the Indian people reacted to such spectacles: “They were as much astonished to see the Indians produce works of art with the aid of rude apparatus they themselves had discarded long ago, as a Hindu would be to see a chimpanzee officiating as a priest in a funeral ceremony…” (Mukharji 1656). The English, who are shocked by the Indian traditions and look at them as though they were animals in a zoo, astounds Mukharji. He is an educated man, and even his intelligence is shocking, Chakraborty comments on this and the fear that businesses and politicians had about possible uprisings within the colonies (Chakraborty 677). Mukharji cannot win, either they are anxious about the fact that he may be savage, or they are afraid of his intelligence: “Of course, every nation in the world considers other nations as savages or at least much inferior to itself…We did not therefore wonder that the common people should take us for barbarians, awkward as we were in every respect” (Mukharji